Reading the Rain
by Batwings79
Summary: Charles Carson watched the raindrops splash against the flagstones, their staccato rhythm soothing to his ear. Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply and let his mind wander back to a similar day two summers ago...The smell of warm earth and wet stone and the musty smell of decaying wood; he had the sense of something as old as nature itself.


He stood in the open doorway looking into their back garden. The sun shone down on his wife's hair causing the silver strands to sparkle. She pulled the last bed sheet from the line and quickly shoved it into the wicker basket at her feet. Scooping up the basket she hurried across the threshold just as the first drops of rain began to fall.

He watched the raindrops splash against the flagstones, their staccato rhythm soothing to his ear. Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply and let his mind wander back to a similar day two summers ago.

* * *

It was the first summer after she retired from full time work at the Abbey. She insisted they put in a vegetable garden; to grow their favorites. He wanted to put in flowers – roses, lavender, perhaps a bit of heather to remind her of home. It had been a dry spring and the ground was hard, and after several long days they reached a compromise. A bower of climbing tea roses over the back door for him, a herb garden for her, and weekly trips to the home farm.

On one of his now numerous trips to return Mrs. Patmore to the Abbey after a visit to the farm, Mr. Mason dropped off several clumps of heather culled from his own garden. It was the memory of this particular afternoon that danced behind Charles' closed eyelids causing a fond smile to spread slowly across his face.

He could see himself tilling the soil at the base of the fieldstone wall that enclosed their back garden. The sun warm on his back; jacket and waistcoat discarded. He leaned against the wall for a moment, watching Elsie walking towards him – a glass of lemonade in each hand.

"I rather like you in shirtsleeves and braces," she said, an impish smirk playing about her lips. She inclined her head back to peruse his form from beneath hooded eyelids.

"Do you now?" Reaching out, he slipped one hand around her hip and slowly drew her to him.

"Very much…" she murmured as he planted a kiss against the side of her neck. She suddenly stiffened and lifted her head with a slight furrow to her brow. "We'd best get in out of the rain!"

Raising his face to the sky and squinting against the bright sunlight, he only saw one or two gray shadows scudding across the sky in the field of white cottony clouds.

"Elsie…love…there's barely a raincloud to be had!"

"Charles…" She arched a knowing eyebrow as if daring him to contradict her.

This had been a phenomenon he had observed many times over their years at the Abbey. Walking to and from the village, she would suddenly pause to look around and then hurry them on to their destination before the rain started. She was right more often than she was wrong, and he finally stopped asking how she knew. When he did, she would shrug her shoulders and tell him it was something she learned growing up on the farm. Later, he sometimes teased her about having a bit of the highland witch in her.

This time, he reached out and took the glasses from her and set them on top of the wall. Placing both hands around her waist, he lifted her up and set her down beside the glasses.

"Tell me what makes you think it's going to rain. Please Elsie, teach me?" he asked plaintively when she fixed him with an exasperated frown.

She could see he was serious and nodded her head in acceptance. "Alright, but you're going to have to trust me."

"You know that I do!" he exclaimed, feeling a bit affronted that she would doubt that.

"Och, don't get your feathers ruffled!" she tutted at him. "This is different. You're going to feel very silly but you have to do everything I tell you." She couldn't help but laugh when he stood to attention in front of her. "Close your eyes and open your arms. Wider, with your palms up."

He hazarded a peek from one eye and was promptly rebuked by a soft slap on his wrist.

"Relax your arms a bit, you need to clear your mind and feel the air. Feel the breeze on your cheek, feel it ruffle your hair."

He felt his mind wandering. He was clueless as to what he was supposed to be feeling.

"There! Do you feel it?"

Her sudden exclamation startled him into motion. "Feel what?" Keeping his eyes closed, he took a half-step forward to balance himself and bumped into her knees. He felt her hand on his shoulder guiding him back a step.

"Do you feel the tendrils of cool air weaving through the warm?"

He concentrated a moment, then his eyes sprang open and he felt himself grinning like a schoolboy. "I feel it, like cool fingers on a fevered brow."

Giving his shoulder a squeeze, she told him, "That's good, but there's more. Close your eyes again and tell me what you smell."

He took a moment to relax his shoulders and center himself before he closed his eyes again. He inhaled slowly through his nose, concentrating on the scents he could pick out – roses, freshly mowed hay, something spicy that he thought might be the herbs planted under the kitchen window - he could feel his spine straighten as his senses became overwhelmed. His nose filled with the scent of something vaguely familiar. Warm earth and wet stone and the musty smell of decaying wood; he had the sense of something as old as nature itself.

He opened his eyes and found her gazing at him. Suddenly she looked away and cocked her to one side, as if listening for something. Turning back to look at him with a growing smile on her face, she asked him, "Quickly, tell me what you hear."

His eyes narrowed not quite understanding, and then he heard it – a soft rhythmic staccato that quickly grew louder. He felt the first fat drops on his face as he realized it was the sound of rain thudding against the sun hardened earth as it moved across the fields. He laughed and spread his arms wide, as if welcoming the drops as they fell from the sky. It took only a few moments for them to be soaked to the skin but neither of them seemed to mind.

* * *

He anticipated the feel of her hand at his temple, carding her fingers through his wet curls; it was the feel of her hands slipping around his waist that brought him out of his daydream. Raising his arm and bringing it down around her shoulders, he leaned down to plant a kiss on her crown as she settled herself in his embrace.

"Thank you for the warning, Charlie. I would not have looked forward to hanging wet bed linens about the kitchen to dry."

* * *

 _ **A/N: I was reviewing old project concepts and this plot bunny was suddenly resurrected and thumped me in the head until I sat down and exorcised it. It originally began when I tried to explain to someone how I could sometimes tell when a spring or summer rain was on it's way. The scientific name for the scent of this sort of rain is petrichor, and yes, you can smell this scent in advance of the rain shower as it heads towards you.**_


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